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Dana Milbank

Rand Paul is more like his father after all

In his speech, Paul presented himself as a modern-day George Kennan, the father of Cold War containment. “What the United States needs is a foreign policy that finds that middle path,” he argued, reading from a teleprompter. “A policy that is not rash or reckless. A foreign policy that is reluctant, restrained by constitutional checks and balances but does not appease.”

But in the details of his speech, Paul didn’t say much about where his foreign policy would allow for intervention. He was skeptical of involvement in Iran and Syria, mentioned concerns about Iraq and urged less military support for Egypt. Paul hurried through his speech in 20 minutes and then bolted from the lectern before questions could be asked. Such sessions at Heritage generally last an hour, including questions.

In his call with reporters later, he returned to a tone that sounded more isolationist — or, as modern isolationists call themselves, non-interventionists. “We supported a concept of radical jihad against the Soviets, and it came back to bite us,” he said. “Some people argue keeping the shah in power ultimately came back to bite us.” Calling for the United States to “be more hesitant,” he argued that in Syria “we shouldn’t be arming one side or the other.”

Blowback

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Well. If you’re not in it to win it, and we never are, his approach seems reasonable.

besser tot als rot on February 7, 2013 at 12:20 PM

I don’t think that’s true. The problem is much older than that.

Back in the day, the British, French, and Spanish colonized third world countries and tried to “westernize” those countries with varying degrees of success. We don’t really do that, so we replaced it with “nation-building,” a rapidly-accelerated version predicated on the notion that the people have a fundamental respect for democracy and the rule of law. The technique worked in Europe and Japan after WWII (none of those countries were third-world, of course), and so we arrogantly believed the same techniques would work in third-world countries. The fail-whales that were Vietnam, Iraq-I, Iraq-II, and Afghanistan would suggest otherwise.

The GOP nominee, whoever that is, better not advocate for getting involved in another Middle East adventure to bring enlightenment to those who don’t want enlightenment.

The single dumbest political thing that future GOP nominee can say is,

“Hey lets go invade Syria! Oh, and by the way, the democrat nominee does not want to invade Syria”.

Hopefully Syria will be over by that point, although considering the Islamic world is always in conflict I am sure they will be killing each other over something else by 2016 which will get neo-cons all excited and demand the GOP nominee to speak out for intervention to save them. In the mean time, China will be preparing to kick our ass out of Asia in about 25 years if they don’t blow their wad prematurely. We need to start focusing on our intelligent enemies, or in China’s case a possible enemy, and stop worrying about 7th century loser who have a hard time taking down ancient statues if we don’t aid them.

Wow, Rand Paul is a lunatic. Only going to war when there is a clear and present danger to the United States and asking for Congress’ approval first???? What a raving lunatic. . . .

thphilli on February 7, 2013 at 12:16 PM

I know huh. What a kook. Can you imagine how crazy it would be if we just minded our own business. Earth to Rand Paul, the world needs us to be the world police, builder of nations at the expense of our own taxpayers and soldiers.

So while the MSM is attacking Rand Paul today they are praising Rubio. They are getting an early start picking the Republican nominee for ’16. I hope they and their lackey, Rubio, fail.

FloatingRock on February 7, 2013 at 12:26 PM

Bingo. Actual conservatives – those that actually vote for small and limited government – are a threat to the establishment and status quo. More power to those that scare the big government goon, more power to Rand Paul.

Wow, who knew Dana Milbank was such an interventionist, supporting military action in “Vietnam, Panama, Kuwait, Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans, Iraq, Libya”, unlike Paul, who declined to say whether he supported any of these actions.

And we don’t have to spend one cent to do it. I think that is what bothers some of our Washington overlords about Syria. They must find ways to blow tax dollars…somehow….somewhere. Look I hate to be blunt but for all the criticism of the Democrats wanting to give the American people “free stuff”, there is actually Republicans called “Neo-Cons” who actually want to give “free stuff” to foreign countries! Worst yet they have convinced the low information voters that is what the GOP and conservatives stand for.

It is hard to argue for cutting spending here in America if we have goof balls on our side wanting to spend billions of dollars rebuilding dumps around the world. I think that is the point of Rand Paul’s view of foreign policy. Hopefully he won’t blow it by going Ron Paul on us.

There might be some aspect of first world (or not third world anyway) or Western oriented that is attributable to the technique working, but on the whole I think what made the concept of nation building successful was the initial technique of nation flattening that was used.

Also the nation building technique, particularly in Europe, was one that comprised many more allies than it did enemies, so it was sure to be successful on the whole.

Korea is left out, but that is instructive in that it was half successful in nation building because it was to some extent a half flattening, or a fight to a standstill. The rest, ought to be divided. Iraq-I and Irag-II were much different in objective than Vietnam and Afghanistan. The two Iraq wars were successful, the first much more so than the second.

Rand’s position, I think relates much more to conditions such as Lebanon, Somalia, maybe Yugoslavia, Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Mali, and and is a position which is informed more by our strategic interests, having a side to weigh in on with the same definitional objectives as we would have, and are willing to fight and die for those objectives. If not, we’d just be wasting our time, blood and treasure.